Clams Progress
 

The clams are coming along pretty well. I've got the shells opening and closing, and am adding the blue "meat" now. Spent a few hours last night chasing a bug in which only the right half of the shells showed up on the screen. Finally tracked it down to a "2" which should have been a "1" buried deep in the .x file. That's the problem with having to hand-craft these model files. If only there were a proper Lightwave plugin which would save .x files with all the hierachy and custom surface normals intact.

It sure helps having an actual clamshell for reference.

Great news. Many thanks.

Hang on, that clam isn't blue?? (I never got the whole blue thing, does anyone have any pictures of the sort of blue clams MA3 is based on?)
John

The "meat" of the clam is blue (or green, or purple). It retracts when the shell is closed. They can close fairly rapidly when brushed by a fish, then open slowly.

I don't have the ones that Jim uses, but here's photos from Egypt:
http://yodelking.barbanet.com/photos...North/PA224651
http://yodelking.barbanet.com/photos...North/PA224678

So, any timetable on the clam beta release?

I'm sure with a detailed list of exactly what you need, a skilled Lightwave plugin author could write such an exporter in a few minutes.

Have you reached out to any in the Lightwave community with such a request?

Many times. No one but me seems to use Lightwave for DirectX development. They are all doing movies.

So the next project is MA3 the Movie, the sequel to Finding Nemo.


//Christer

Can't wait Jim

The movie is kinda the whole point...!

The clams are coming along slowly. I had a bit of a setback when my first try at animating the mantle (the blue part) failed. The "teeth" of the shell kept chopping through it. I'm re-designing the mantle now.

Okay, I now get the blue clam thing and feel a tiny bit slow. The sides of the clams are beigey-greenish but hardly visible at all. The blue stuff is the inside which is sticking out much more than I expected and not looking all that inside-of-clam-ish (looks hard, not soft). It looked like blue shell to me, hence my confusion...
Whew...

I am still confused. Perhaps the final version will clarify matters.

Ahhh... I see! - or rather I do now but I didn't! :o - I also didn't realise that that green and blue wasn't the shell! :o
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Underw...ia/GiantClams/

The green and blue part would be considered part of the meat of the clam.

If the green and blue bits are the insides it is little wonder the shells were "chopping through" them.

I had always assumed that everyone had seen clams, knew how they worked, and would be very critical if I didn't get the movement exactly right. Now I see that it will be more of an educational experience for most. :)

Since when has knowing anything about movement ever been a prerequisite for criticism? ;) ;)